Cloud Gazing
by ssapientia
Summary: She's always tied back the delicate paper carefully, twisting the ribbon into a light silk bow.


**I don't own Reborn!**

**Based on I-pin's crush on Hibari, and the episode in which she gives him chocolates for Valentines Day. (Embarrassingly enough, I realised this story was under the characters I-pin and HIBIRD, lesson learned - never post a story whilst consuming alcohol.)**

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><p><em><strong>Cloud gazing<strong>_

Haru taught I-pin how to make her own chocolate. Somehow Haru and Kyoko always seem to make it perfectly, all the while whispering teenage secrets to each other behind open palms so she couldn't hear. I-pin's first attempt was overdone and cooled with an array of little bubbles staining across the surface where it should be flat and smooth. But she was only five years old, so Haru and Kyoko laughed sweetly and pinched her cheeks when they bloated with frustration.

It's fine, if she was a normal child who only knew of paint stained hands and embraces that seem to shield you from the world, when really by this age I-pin's had her fingers dipped knuckle deep in blood. She always neglects mentioning the bitter truth that she's been an assassin since she could walk. An assassin is nothing more than a polished title for murderer, but both Haru and Kyoko know very little about the horrors of death, so even though they shield her from their romantic fantasies, she takes a grim satisfaction in knowing she shelters them from the world they won't understand.

I-pin writes a card which is filled with more ink than writing, hoping it won't matter too much when her excited hands shake, dripping large black circles onto the white paper.

It doesn't, not when Hibari accepts her gift with modesty and patience, a light smile on his lips. _(I-pin does wonder though, even at her young age, if it is the novelty of receiving such a gift from a five year old that amuses him)_

It becomes a routine, every year she makes the chocolate and every year it's never quite right. Her little fingers work at smoothing down the delicate wrapping paper and tying it back with a light silk bow. Her kanji has never been perfect because her hands are still rough and raw from consistent training as a child. But she can fold the paper perfectly now, her babyish fingers evolved into slim pale hands, so the packaging is always perfect, regardless of the gift it layers and hides.

At some point in their pre-teen years, I-pin and Lambo take to lying down in the thick blades of grass atop a hill in Namimori. I-pin doesn't mind listening to her best friend lamenting his duties as the Lighting Guardian, but guiltily it's only half an ear she gives him, her eyes focused steadily on the slow moving clouds, hands open brushing against the soft surface, always ready to reach upward.

Hibari always accepts her gifts honestly and young I-pin considers herself half in love with the man that's willing to at least pretend to receive joy from something so insignificant. But by the time she's fifteen, and he's twenty-five, his lips twist downward instead of that familiar tilted half smile that she craves. His hand still reaches out to receive the offering gracefully. Perhaps he is willing to humour a child with her shy innocent declarations, but I-pin's almost a woman now and she's worried his amusement is fading.

She obsesses endlessly about his latest reaction. Hours spill into days then slowly months till she realises that every spare minute she's had has been dedicated to deciphering his guarded stares. There are so many scenarios that have been jumping around in her mind, keeping her eyes wide and unfocused during long nights when she should be sleeping. In the end she narrows it down to the only truth, which also happens to be exactly what she's been denying furiously for years.

He may be happy to indulge the nonsensical whims of a child, but he must of believed her infatuation would have worn down in due time. He seems to not be quite as tolerant towards a teenage girl, mafia assassin or not.

That's why by the time the next Valentine's Day comes she thinks twice as hard as to what she should write on the paper. It's always been brief, a simple thank you and her name, but I-pin wants to tell him she's serious for once, unlike the giggling romantic's Haru and Kyoko were at her age. She practices her Kanji for days before she writes the attached note, but cannot bring herself to write more than the simple practised words. _Because they're the neatest she can do, after years of mimicked letters, and she ashamed of what he will think if it's not only the chocolate that isn't perfect._

He lifts his arm to reach for her folded package, her bottom lip dry and bitten from weeks of nervousness. He must of spotted that gleam of pre-mature hope in her eyes, because before she can even comprehend that he has accepted her gift he cuts in harshly. "I don't think you should continue this," his eyes are serious and narrow with an infamous glare that she has never been a subject to. "I do not intend to ever have a partner," he continues, "and I'm sure you can find a young boy your own age."Any words of protest dry up in her throat and stick to the top of mouth refusing to move, but it wouldn't have mattered either way. Before she can even stutter a reply he turns away swiftly and stalks off in the opposite direction.

It's a sort of numb blubbering irritation at herself that stirs around in her stomach. She's been feigning illness for days and hasn't left her bed since. Although I-pin was half expecting the rejection it hits her system like a series of electric shocks, up and down her spine, it's scary, because she doesn't know how to move on like normal teenage girls do. Briefly she entertains the idea of doing just that, but hushes it quickly away, her affections have always belonged to Hibari, and they still do.

I-pin doesn't cry though, not until the next year when she realizes that while shopping she had absentmindedly brought all the items necessary to making that prized recipe. She stares at the items, trying to will them away, before her knees slip and she's covered in her own tears.

She's making chocolate, under the pretence that she's going to give it to her friends, when she's hit with a startling revelation. I-pin had never once pictured herself with Hibari, when she cooed for him in juvenile fantasies there's only ever been him, no delusions of any kind of romantic partnership on her behalf. Her fingers dip knuckle deep into the warm pot filled with liquid chocolate, her fingers stinging lightly in the heat but she barely notices, like the blood on your hands over time. Soon the blood is just blood, its dark red, warm and completely different to that bright liquid flowing through your veins.

I-pin continues to fold over the paper and tie it up with a bow, addressed with a letter. She awards the chocolate to herself but can't stand to write more than the tiny original phrases. The chocolate is thick and a little too rich, clinging to the walls of her mouth and staining her teeth, it tastes an awful lot like those words she just couldn't spit out.

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><p>When I-pin is twenty-five she finally makes the perfect blend, with a smooth brown surface and hard sharp corners. It's packaging, like always, superb, green paper this year which she folds fluently. That night it seems particularly dark and she sits down with her ink pen and paper. The letter is addressed more to herself than the person she intends to send it to.<p>

_This year the chocolate I've made is perfect. I'm sure you remember my other pathetic attempts, always bubbling or cracked, Haru told me I was inexperienced so I should expect some difficulty. She seems to be wrong though, because it was twenty years until the result was satisfactory. _

_My kanji has also improved, probably because I'm picking up a pen to write essays more often than lifting my fists to fight. It's still a bit messy, but I have a feeling it always will be._

I-pin bites down on the end of her ink pen before continuing.

_I don't think you'll mind so much now that the gift it bears is not a childish mess._

She leaves the offering on the wooden step outside the cloud guardian's front door. The light silk bow flaps helplessly in the breeze, neatly tucking in a letter filled with as much ink as the first one she wrote.

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><p><em><strong>AN - Please Review :) It makes me sooooo happy you wouldn't believe. If you reeealy can't be bothered, thanks for reading either way.<strong>_


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